Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
Berlin Gay Pride Parade, 1994
Born	Lothar Berfelde 18 March 1928(1928-03-18) Berlin-Mahlsdorf, Germany
Died	30 April 2002(2002-04-30) (aged 74) Berlin, Germany

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (18 March 1928 - 30 April 2002) was the founder of the Gründerzeit Museum (a museum of everyday items) in Berlin-Mahlsdorf.

Biography

Early years

Von Mahlsdorf was born Lothar Berfelde, the son of Max Berfelde and Gretchen Gaupp in Berlin-Mahlsdorf, Germany. At a very young age she felt more like a girl, and expressed more interest in the clothing and articles of little girls. In her younger years she helped a second-hand goods dealer clear out the apartments of deported Jews and sometimes kept items for herself.

Max Berfelde, Lothar's father, was already a member of the Nazi Party by the late 1920s and he had become a party leader in Mahlsdorf. In 1942 he forced Lothar to join the Hitler Youth. They often quarrelled, but the situation escalated in 1944 when Lothar's mother left the family during the evacuation. Max demanded Lothar choose between her parents and threatened her with a gun. Shaken by this, Lothar struck her father dead with a rolling pin while he slept. In January 1945, after several weeks in a psychiatric institution, Lothar was sentenced by a court in Berlin to four years detention as an anti-social juvenile delinquent.

Career

With the fall of the Third Reich, Lothar was released. She worked as a second-hand goods dealer and dressed in a more feminine way. "Lothar" became "Lottchen". She loved older men and became a well-known figure in the city as von Mahlsdorf. She began collecting household items, thus saving historical every-day items from bombed-out houses. She was also able to take advantage of the clearance of the households of people who left for West Germany.

Her collection evolved into the Gründerzeit Museum. She had become engaged in the preservation of the von Mahlsdorf estate, which was threatened with demolition, and was awarded the manor house rent-free. In 1960, Von Mahlsdorf opened the museum of everyday articles from the Gründerzeit (the time of the founding of the German Empire) in the only partially reconstructed Mahlsdorf manor house. The museum became well known in cinematic, artistic and gay circles. From 1970 on, the East Berlin homosexual scene often had meetings and celebrations in the museum.

In 1974 the East German authorities announced that they wanted to bring the museum and its exhibits under state control. In protest von Mahlsdorf began giving away the exhibits to visitors. Thanks to the committed involvement of the actress Annekathrin Bürger and the attorney Friedrich Karl Kaul (and possibly also thanks to her enlistment as an inoffizieller Mitarbeiter or Stasi collaborator) the authorities' attempt was stopped in 1976 and she was able to keep the museum.

In 1991 neo-Nazis attacked one of her celebrations in the museum. Several participants were hurt. At this time von Mahlsdorf announced she was considering leaving Germany. In 1992 she received the Bundesverdienstkreuz. Her decision to leave Germany meant that she guided her last visitor through the museum in 1995 and in 1997 she moved to Porla Brunn, an old spa near Hasselfors, Sweden, where she opened (with moderate success) a new museum dedicated to the turn of the 19th century. The city of Berlin bought the Gründerzeit Museum, and by 1997 it had been opened again by the "Förderverein Gutshaus Mahlsdorf e. V.".

Von Mahlsdorf died from heart failure during a visit to Berlin on 30 April 2002.

Doubtful past

In the 1990s questions arose about von Mahlsdorf's past. It became clear that her autobiography contained several contradictions, during both the Nazi period and the GDR period.

The accusation was made that her collection was largely the result of the breaking up of the households of Jews deported during the Third Reich and had grown in size from the breaking up of the households of those who had fled East Germany.

Moreover, she had supposedly become an Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter of the Stasi on principle on November 17, 1971 and had allegedly supplied information under the code name "Park" until 1976.

Independently of this some people accused her of valuing the bourgeois lifestyle and dissociating herself from East Germany after the Wende, calling it a "rotes KZ" (a red concentration camp) and declaring Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski worse than Hermann Göring.

Biologically and economically questionable comments such as "Daß die Lesben und Schwulen keine Kinder kriegen, das ist doch ganz natürlich. Die Natur sucht sich ja auch aus, was sie gebrauchen kann, was sie sich vermehren läßt und was nicht. Und wenn wir’s mal so nehmen: Wenn die Lesben und Schwulen nun auch noch Kinder kriegen würden, dann hätten wir heute noch viel mehr Arbeitslose" ("That lesbians and gays can't have children is after all quite natural. Nature too seeks out what it can use, what can reproduce and what can't. If we look at it like that, if lesbians and gays did have children, then we'd have a lot more unemployed people today") - a remark made during a lecture on March 12, 1997 in Berlin [1] - meant that she lost friends within the gay scene as well.

Legacy

Regardless of these issues, some people still honour her memory, be it for her work as the founder of the Gründerzeit Museum, or for her public role as a transvestite and her foregrounding of the persecution of homosexuals in both the Third Reich and East Germany. The appeal for a memorial to von Mahlsdorf, organized by the "Förderverein Gutshaus Mahlsdorf e. V." and the "Interessengemeinschaft Historische Friedhöfe Berlin" was therefore a success.

The intention of the organizers was to erect a memorial with the inscription "Ich bin meine eigene Frau (I am my own wife) - Charlotte von Mahlsdorf - 18. März 1928 - 30. April 2002" on the first anniversary of Charlotte's death. However, von Mahlsdorf's relatives demanded the inscription be changed. As questions remained about the disposition of her estate, and the "Förderverein Gutshaus Mahlsdorf e. V." was concerned that her relatives could demand the return of her furniture, they yielded to these demands.

Although Charlotte von Mahlsdorf had been known almost exclusively by her "stage name" in recent years, her relatives pushed through the inscription "Lothar Berfelde, 1928 - 2002, genannt Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Dem Museumsgründer zur Erinnerung" (Lothar Berfelde, 1928 - 2002, known as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. In memory of the (male) founder of the museum).

Ich bin meine eigene Frau

In 1992 German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim made a film about von Mahlsdorf called Ich bin meine eigene Frau. von Mahlsdorf appears in the film.

I Am My Own Wife

Main article: I Am My Own Wife

American playwright Doug Wright wrote the character play, I Am My Own Wife based on von Mahlsdorf's life from his own research of her biography. Since its initial run on- and off-Broadway the play has garnered every major theatre award including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Drama.

Because the English translation of the German word Frau can be translated as "wife", or "woman", the title can be interpreted as either "I am my own woman", or "I am my own wife". Though the latter translation used by Wright more closely correlates to the word Ehefrau, the phrase, "Ich bin meine eigene Frau" is von Mahlsdorf's answer to her mother's question, "Don't you think it's time to get married?"

German author Peter Süß, co-author and publisher of von Mahlsdorf's book, has made another play called "Ich bin meine eigene Frau". The play had its premiere in spring 2006 at the Schauspiel Leipzig.

Bibliography

• Mahlsdorf, Charlotte von (1992) (in German). Ich bin meine eigene Frau (First edition ed.). St. Gallen: u.a.. ISBN 386034109X. 
• Mahlsdorf, Charlotte von (1997) (in German). Ab durch die Mitte (First edition ed.). Munich: Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl. ISBN 3423200413. 
• Mahlsdorf, Charlotte von (2004). I Am My Own Woman: The True Story of Charlotte von Mahlsdor (First edition ed.). San Francisco: Cleis Press. ISBN 1573442003. 

External links

• Literature by and about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf in the catalogue of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
• Gründerzeit Museum - Official Website (German)
• Article in Die Berliner Zeitung on questions about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's biography (German)
• The play I Am My Own Wife
• I Am My Own Wife: The True Story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, memoir by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
• Ich bin meine eigene Frau at the Internet Movie Database
• I Am My Own Wife at the Internet Broadway Database

Persondata
Name	Mahlsdorf, Charlotte von
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	18 March 1928
Place of birth	Berlin-Mahlsdorf, Germany
Date of death	30 April 2002
Place of death	Berlin, Germany